Interactive software applications are installed on customer computers, systems, and/or other machines and used by customer personnel at various customer locations. The interactive software applications may be directed toward a wide array of applications, including medical applications. As an example, the software applications may assist medical personnel located at hospitals and other medical facilities to diagnose and treat patients. The software applications may support medical imaging techniques and devices, and/or facilitate maintaining and updating medical files associated with individual patients. The software applications may be directed toward other types of applications as well, both medical and non-medical.
Periodically, software applications in use are revised and updated. However, the installation of the software upgrades may be cumbersome and time intensive. The installation process may require downtime, during which the customer machine is not available for use.
For instance, customer personnel may install the revised software. Alternatively, an experienced software technician may travel to each customer facility and install the software upgrades on the customer machines. At the customer facility, the technician may have to initially back-up all the user-specific data and customized application settings. After saving the customized application settings, the technician may install the new version of the software application. Subsequently, the technician may re-install the saved customized settings.
After the new version of the application is installed, so-called client or customer protocols, such as hardware and configuration specific protocols, may have to be converted to become compatible with the new version of software. As noted, during the entire software upgrade process, the customer's machine may be occupied and unavailable for use by the customer.
Additionally, some of the software upgrade related operations may be performed by a software technician using another actual machine that is similar to the customer machine, such as a machine that is located at a remote service center. However, performing software upgrade related operations or modifications on another actual machine may have associated high overhead costs, such as the maintenance and upkeep of a dedicated actual computer and/or medical system.